His Secret
by fringeperson
Summary: He was a paradox, and his greatest fear was to be undone and discovered. It was also something he desperately wanted, even though he didn't know it. Do not own Naruto. TWO-SHOT. KAKASAKU. COMPELTE.
1. Chapter 1

He's a liar.

He says "Hi," like he's glad to see you, when he'd rather have not noticed and you return that same favour.

When you ask him how he is, he knows you don't really care, but he'll answer, and his answer is always a default "fine," even though he really never is. If he respects you – note, not _like_, because he's personally quite sure that his heart froze over a long time ago and he is incapable of feeling that emotion – he'll even tack on a "how've you been?" even though he isn't interested either. He'll let you jabber on about your life for a few minutes, adding appropriate noises of sympathy/understanding/congratulation where he can see they belong.

Then when you part ways, suggesting that perhaps he could come over for a drink or a meal, or even meet up somewhere, he'll say "sure," but then he never does. Every thing is a stock answer and he doesn't mean a word of it.

--

He's brutally honest.

Every single reason and excuse he ever gave for being late was completely true and can be verified, it's just that no one ever does because they all assume it's a lie.

Every training session, he won't sugar-coat the truth, soften his words or give redundant, false praise. As a man ill-at-ease with conversing in the first place, everything he says regarding skill levels is completely true and to be taken with as much seriousness and consideration as it is given.

If what he says upset you, it wasn't because he intended it to, it's simply that you had never been faced with so much honesty about your skill levels before.

--

He is a coward.

It has nothing to do with his skill in battle, and very little to do with the mask that he wears.

His is a coward because he hides behind the bravado and mystery that those around him have built up on his behalf, without ever consulting him.

He hides behind the Icha Icha books and the label "pervert" they give him, hiding that at just past 30, he's still a virgin, never even been kissed properly, though the mask has gotten in the way of a few drunken kissed plastered to his face by random women. They were the drunk ones, not him.

He hides behind rumours that he is a sex-god, so that he can pretend to be picky when really he is terrified of what the women may want from him, and the let down should they ever learn the truth.

--

She had learned the first and the second facts of him rather quickly. Having been placed in his team, the only girl and a good deal smarter than she looked, it hadn't been hard. It wasn't until her curiosity got the best of her and she picked up one of those orange books, however, that she began to get an inkling of the third truth of him. The plot was fascinating, the characters involving, the action sequences finger-bitingly good, and the sex scene, right back near the end, was tasteful more than it was hot-and-heavy.

Then again, if it had been, she supposed he would have been walking around with a boner all day, every day, unless he got really good sex every night. Except that if he were, he wasn't getting it from any of the places he went by on his way home each night. She watched him go into the bar with Kurunei and Asuma – whom she knew were in a relationship – and she watched him leave alone, completely sober and… slightly tense. Which didn't really make sense either, since people went to the bar to drink and relax, and he seemed to have done neither.

--

Sasuke returned not long after he had turned twenty. After he had sorted out the disciplinary issues with Tsunade, he had sought out Sakura. They sat in a tea house and calmly discussed their feelings for each other. Yes, they did care about each other. No, it wasn't romantic, and romance would never work between them.

--

Naruto had returned from training with the pervert, again, and upon seeing Sakura had jumped her. Again. Before he closed his arms around her, the Hokage's apprentice had flicked his forehead protector with one chakra-infused fingertip and sent him flying, a bored expression on her face.

--

Sakura studied the files, memorised the scrolls, improved her chakra control and ran a lap of the village wall at the beginning and end of every day. She trained in the more common arts of ninja – ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu – whenever she could make time, but that wasn't nearly as often as she would have liked, and she sacrificed any social life she might have had in order to get it in.

One day, she walked into a bookstore, needing a distraction, and with a rueful smile and a shake of the head, she took an orange cover off the shelf and headed to the checkout. She was nearly 28, and still a virgin – a rare thing for a kunoichi. Not that it really mattered one way or the other. Sakura knew better by now to believe that sex meant love, so that wasn't it. She was simply to busy to even get a one-night stand, unless she wanted to sleep with Genma. Frankly, the idea of contracting something did not appeal to her, and she _had_ read his file.

The only reason she had time to read Icha Icha _now_ was because Tsunade had decided her apprentice was becoming a little much of a work-a-holic. Otherwise, Sakura was sure she wouldn't have had time for her ex-sensei's favourite literature either.

When she returned to her duties, Sakura's first patient was Kakashi.

--

He was lost.

He knew why he was there, at least on face value. It was a party, and he had been invited. After he had been invited very politely, his two male ex-students had shown up at his door and threatened him in most impolite terms that he was going to go to this party or they would kill him.

It wasn't a big party really, just the old team 7 really, but it quickly grew to all of the 'Konoha Twelve' and all the more senior ninja who were still alive. Their numbers were dwindling on both sides. The twelve was down to eight, and of the ninja that were … older than what remained of the twelve, there were only Kakashi himself, the Hokage, Ibiki, Anko and Kurenai. Shizune could have been there also, but was running around doing the paperwork that Tsunade had neglected in order to enjoy Sakura's 30th birthday celebration. Still, the thing about gathering together was that it highlighted all the people who _weren't there_. A bit depressing as far as he was concerned.

That Tsunade managed to get drunk enough to pour cranberry juice into his hair to see if it would go pink like Sakura's hair only made it worse. Particularly since he was still mostly sober. The way Sakura face-palmed and rose from the table indicated that she was too, and thoroughly embarrassed with her shishou.

He watched as she performed a sleeping justu on the blonde, busty woman and ordered Naruto to take her back to her office. Naruto was unsteady on his feet, but fine enough to carry out Sakura's orders.

Sakura walked with Kakashi back to his place to help him get the juice out of his hair.

--

He was terrified.

He had no idea how it had happened, but somehow Sakura had stayed the night at his apartment rather than returning to her own a mere two blocks away. He knew this because when he had left his bedroom and stumbled into the living room, intent on the kitchen and coffee, she had been asleep on his couch. Furthermore, she had been asleep on his couch with a copy of Icha Icha rumpled on her stomach, and it wasn't his. His copy of that volume was on the shelf above her.

He stood there staring at her for a full minute, all thoughts of coffee flown from his mind. He nearly jumped out of his skin when her eyes fluttered open and those green orbs fixed on him.

"I've been meaning to tell you," she said, sitting up, apparently oblivious to the fact that Kakashi was rooted to the spot and staring at her like a deer caught in headlights. "I think I've figured out your secret, Kakashi," it was like she was determined to give him a heart attack. "Of course," she continued, "I have the same secret."

He broke down and cried then, and he wasn't sure why. He just held her around the waist and cried on her knee.

"I've got another secret, Kakashi," she said softly when he had calmed down. Stroking his hair, she bent to whisper the words into his ear. "I think I've fallen in love with you."

His head jerked up and his one visible eye searched her green orbs. Gently, she kissed his forehead and smiled down at him. Kakashi shifted up to sit beside her and pulled his mask down.

"Thank you Sakura," he said, leaning in to capture her lips in his own, for his first kiss.


	2. Chapter 2

He was in shock.

He had no idea how he had lived to be 50 years old. Naruto was the Hokage now, had been for a couple of years. Tsunade had handed over the title before she had her last bottle of sake, but she was dead now, and much mourned at the time. Though no one would miss her temper.

He had checked his bank balance and, being the cheap-skate he always had been, there was rather more in there than might be expected of someone who lived only on ninja commissions. He had made up his mind though. Since she had confronted him five years ago, and they had really gotten the chance to fall and settle into their love, he was going to ask her.

--

Sakura smiled as she sat down to have lunch with her older boyfriend. It seemed odd somehow to think of him that way. When she was 30 and he was in his mid-forties, it hadn't seemed so strange, but now that he was fifty, the word 'boyfriend' just seemed wrong.

Still, he'd aged well. No one would know he was a day over 34 still, even if they were aware of his real age. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that his hair had been that same gorgeous silver colour his whole life.

Actually, that was why they were having lunch in the first place. It was his birthday, and they had agreed to a tame, private little celebration. Just the two of them.

"I found something interesting in the records yesterday," she said casually, pretending that she hadn't spent days searching for it. "A record for the oldest ninja of Konoha, he died at 92. He'd been retired for a while of course," she said conversationally.

"Hinting something Sakura?" Kakashi asked dryly.

"Warming up for the more interesting tidbit actually," she retorted, a smirk on her face.

"Don't leave me in suspense," he chuckled, slipping his lunch beneath his mask.

Sakura waited until she was sure Kakashi had swallowed. "He died a virgin," she stated. "So you've got another 32 years to wait if you want to go for the record, but for the record –"

"I don't want to," he cut in. "And neither will you, if I have any say about it."

--

He must be mad.

He'd asked her to come to his apartment after her shift at the hospital finished. There was something important he had to hear from her, needed to hear from her, desperately wanted to hear from her. It wasn't so much about the detail she'd slipped during their lunch, as it was about the small gift he had given her. A bit odd perhaps considering it was his birthday, but it could mean the greatest gift of his life.

He was waiting by the door when the bell rang, and he opened it with anticipatory nervousness. If the smile on her face was anything to go by, he needn't have worried.

"You want a fiance for your birthday?" she asked, stepping through his door and wrapping her arms around his chest.

"I'll give you a husband for your next birthday, how does that sound?" he suggested, wrapping his arms around her in return and lowering his masked face so that he could whisper in her ear.

"Wonderful," she said, drawing back and de-tangling a hand from his still full and everywhere silver crown. "Would you like to be deflowered now or on the night?"

"We're both getting married in white, Sakura," he stated.

"Still scared?" she asked gently.

"Shitless," was his flat response.

"Me too," she admitted. "But I'm looking forward to it as well. Have I told you today that I love you?"

Kakashi pulled his mask down and smiled.

"Love you," she said, kissing him lightly on the corner of his mouth.

"You too," he answered, pressing his own lips firmly to hers and kissing her soundly.

--

Naruto conducted the ceremony. Sasuke gave her away. Shino, of all people, was Kakashi's best man. The two silent-types had gotten acquainted over several missions about ten years earlier, and had become friends without the barrier of ever having been student and teacher to interfere with the friendly dynamic.

It was perhaps a good thing Gai and Lee had both passed on long ago. They would have made the whole ceremony embarrassing; between Gai's tears at 'youthful love being harboured even in the weathering of life' or some such nonsense, and Lee's sobbing at having lost 'the blossom of his heart' to his mentor's rival…

It was a quiet ceremony. Not the smallest, but quiet all the same, and that was important to the couple. Kakashi had held true to his word, and they had both been wearing white for the ceremony. Sakura felt like it made them both look a bit washed out, since they both had fairly pale skin and light hair, but it was the principle of the thing and she wasn't one to object.

It was a subversive declaration to all present that the rumours were insubstantial regarding Kakashi's prowess and the reputation of all female ninjas. Both doubted anybody would notice, but they would know, and that was what mattered.

After the reception, the newly wed Mr and Mrs Hatake returned to Kakashi's apartment. He opened the door and picked Sakura up, and she smiled that it still was so easy for him, kissing his still masked jaw tenderly just before her put her down on the other side of the threshold.

"That was a wonderful birthday present," Sakura said, eyes bright as she wrapped her arms around Kakashi's chest again. "I don't know how you'll ever top it next year."

"Next year I anticipate being horrible, because you'll be in labour," he said, wrapping his arms around her waist and drawing her even closer, smiling down at her with a glint in his eye that had never been present before.

With a matching smile and lusty look, Sakura let herself be guided to the nearest horizontal surface their apartment – _their _apartment, not just his, but _theirs_ – had to offer. Time to consumate…


End file.
